Heppner Grain Elevator Fire

The internet is a great place to learn about events you never would have otherwise been aware of. Sometimes those events are right in your backyard! While searching Youtube I happened to run across this color video from 1950, the year my Grandpa started farming. I’m embedding this video because I want this blog to educate not only about our products and their usage, but also about farming in general and the history of agriculture and rural communities. The video takes place in Heppner, a town about a 25 minutes drive from our farm. My grandfather was born in Heppner, and my dad and I graduated from high school here (in 1973 and 2003, respectively). This video shows the grain elevators (large grain storage facilities) located on Riverside Avenue going up in flames, quite dramatically! These grain elevators would have been owned and operated by Morrow County Grain Growers, a grain cooperative of whice I am a member. Coop growers deliver their grain to such elevators at harvest time and the coop acts as a broker of sorts to market the grain to buyers. Most grain elevators in operation at the time of this fire were made of wood. 2x4’s or 2x6’s were stacked flat on top of each other in an interlocking pattern and nailed together. That took a LOT of wood. Once constructed, the wood was usually covered with galvanized siding to protect it from the weather. Though 80 years old or more, many such elevators are still in use. We deliver wheat to an elevator similar to these pictured each year. More modern grain elevators are either constructed from concrete or steel. A steel elevator is located on Riverside avenue currently, likely on the same site as these ones going up in flames. I may add to this post if I can find some newspaper reports on what caused the fire. It appears that several structures were completely destroyed, which was likely aided by the wind coming out of the west.